Hope for Harrisburg

Mayor Linda Thompson, controller Dan Miller and most City Council members seem to have a hard time discussing the future of Harrisburg without someone storming out of the room.

Dauphin County is suing the city, the city has issued a distress call to the state, a workable solution to the incinerator debt is not yet on the table, and even Glenn Beck is taking pot shots. Needless to say, Harrisburg is not exactly a model of civil discourse or responsible governance.

CHRIS KNIGHT, The Patriot-News, fileMayor Linda Thompson speaks to council during a presentation of the 2011 city budget at the City Government Center in Harrisburg/

It’s time for the people of our city, our state and our country to demand more from our leaders. But change in Harrisburg will not start at news conferences or in front of the cameras at City Hall.

Change will not start with sound bites, paranoia or name calling. Leave those kinds of antics to Sarah Palin and her friends at Fox News. Here in Harrisburg, we have serious problems and we need serious people to solve them.

President Barack Obama admitted on Nov. 3 that the Democrats had taken a “shellacking” at the polls, but had the maturity to tell the American people that he would work with the Republican leadership “openly and honestly.”

Although Harrisburg has come within days of not making payroll and might yet be forced to declare bankruptcy to survive the bad decisions of a previous era, it is not too late for leadership. It is not too late for my fellow residents of Harrisburg to take to the streets to demand that those we elect remember that they work for us, not we for them.

It is not too late for those who live throughout the Harrisburg area to hold town hall meetings to flesh out the issues and find real solutions. I have hope for Harrisburg. I have hope that we will remember that our shared interests — digging our city out of debt, creating jobs that pay a living wage, giving students the opportunity to succeed — are more powerful than the differences that tear us apart.

I have hope that we will overcome the negativity of those who blame Obama for all of America’s problems and those who blame Thompson for all of Harrisburg’s problems and recognize that no man or woman alone can solve our problems. And I have hope that we will build our community by envisioning new ways to come together.

Alan Kennedy-Shaffer

I am launching Harrisburg Hope, a grassroots political organization that will bring people from all walks of life together to talk about community issues, find solutions to the challenges that have stymied our elected officials, and encourage open communication and better representation.

Harrisburg Hope will sponsor town hall meetings, issue evidence-based policy recommendations, reclaim the mantle of civic responsibility that led many of us to organize for Obama in 2008, and help spark a new era of progressive leadership.

Why Harrisburg Hope? As a former organizer for the Obama campaign, I have seen what happens when students, teachers, preachers, union members, business owners and others mobilize.

As a resident of the Harrisburg area since 1998 who recently returned from school to live and work in the city, I see an opportunity for a broader, political, unifying community movement to succeed where single-issue, “expert” only and factionalized efforts have failed. And as a lawyer and author, I know it is tempting to demonize but more effective to inspire others to come together.

I invite you to join me in demanding leadership not just on Election Day, but every day. I invite you to join me by talking to your neighbors, registering your friends to vote, showing your support for civil discourse and positive change and having the courage to make your voice heard.

Only when we stand together will our demands for leadership echo through the corridors of power. Only when we put principle before partisanship and progress before pessimism will we restore faith in our democracy. And only when we have hope will we lead Harrisburg forward.